There is More to Life Than Subject To, There Is Also Seller Financing

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Subject To is fine and it works when the right situation presents itself (which is actually pretty rare) and if you have the $30,000 or so, to take over the loan and guarantee that the payments will always be made. It is not zero down and has never been zero down and anyone who says it's zero down is either XXXX or XXXXing to you. ;-) Please don't believe them.

However, when someone doesn't have a mortgage and they want to sell their property and maybe get some of their equity to cashflow, they can sell, they can do a Seller Finance. Subject To doesn't even apply since there is no mortgage.

Seller Finance simply put, is selling a property, the attorney creates a mortgage for the buyer and the buyer collects payments. There is no bank involved, the seller becomes the bank. There is no need for a real estate agent. The seller can save 6% on agent fees so on a $700,000 property that is $42,000 in savings. The buyer doesn't have to pay a bank's 2% in loan fees, so he saves $14,000 in fees. The seller gets regular monthly payments for income. An attorney might charge $1,500 to do the paperwork. 

Banks (lenders) & real estate agents hate this and will warn that the world will fall apart if you don't use them and pay their fees. You're using an attorney remember. They will know more than agents, I can assure you.

You can have an appraisal done, but it isn't required. The sales price can be whatever the two parties agree to.

The buyer for sure should have a Title Report done to see if there is anything strange about the title. An attorney or title company can do that for you.

Some states charge a tax when ownership changes hands so you want to know that in advance. For instance it's 1.78% excise tax in Washington when you sell a house so, a $700,000 sale is about $12,500 in excise tax alone. (Varies by county)

The seller & buyer settle on a purchase & sale amount, interest rate, term (typically 360 months but could be any length) decide if there is a balloon payment, monthly payment, date of closing, date of occupancy and so on. The buyer takes out an insurance policy, closing is through escrow. All of this & much more are covered at our website but this is enough info for here.

Seller financing is done in all states and is one of the oldest ways of properties changing hands.